Successful Installation of the VIRMOS Laser Mask Manufacturing Unit (MMU) at Paranal

The Mask Manufacturing Unit (MMU), one of the three main components of the VIRMOS project, has been delivered and successfully installed at Paranal Observatory at the beginning of August. The MMU is a laser-based system, which will be used to cut the slit masks for the VIMOS, NIRMOS and FORS2 spectrographs. The unit also manages the selection, storage and insertion of the masks into dedicated cabinets. A batch of masks has been manufactured on Paranal for a test with FORS2. The quality of the masks (position accuracy and roughness of the slits) are fully compliant with the instrument specifications.